Harmful Spirits

What does that mean?

There are passages in the Bible that we read and we have no idea what that means. Or we think we know what that means, but it doesn’t match up with what we thought was true.

1 Samuel 16:13–14 “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.”

We see a contrast here between Saul and David. When the Holy Spirit came upon David, He left Saul.

But the real question is what kind of harmful spirit does God have that He sends upon people to torment them? This sounds like a demon, but surely God is not sending demons to torment people.

In talking about a man in the church who was sleeping with his stepmother, Paul says 1 Corinthians 5:5 “you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

In Paul’s letter to Timothy we read, 1 Timothy 1:20 “among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.”

In the story of Job, we read that Satan was allowed by God to basically wreck Job’s life as a test to see if Job would continue to trust God.

God is in charge of all things, but He is not the cause of all things.

We need to back up in Saul’s story to understand what is going on. Saul started out as what we would think of as a great conquering king. He appointed a garrison led by Jonathan and they defeated another garrison of Philistines.

But that victory was short lived as the Philistines mustered up a very large army of 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and troops too large to number.

The people began to hide and Saul was waiting for Samuel to arrive to sacrifice and seek God’s favor. After 7 days, people started leaving, so Saul went ahead and offered the sacrifice, and like a movie, Samuel arrived as Saul was finishing up.

1 Samuel 13:13–14 “And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.””

Ultimately Saul’s great downfall is in his failure to destroy the Amelekites completely. He saved the best of their spoils and did not kill their king.

1 Samuel 15:26–28 “And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.”

Now we return to the harmful spirit.

Is this spirit a demon, an angel, or something else? It is more than likely a demon.

How is it that God would send a demon to possess someone? After all he talks about how foolish it would be for Satan to cast out a demon, it would seem to follow that it would be foolish for the Lord to send a demon into a person. The answer is that God does not cause the demon to enter into Saul, but allows Satan to do his worst to Saul.

Think about Saul being the King of Israel, God’s people. He would most assuredly have Satan’s attention.

God sending the harmful spirit is merely God turning Saul over to Satan to allow Satan to have his way with Saul.

What does this have to do with us?

Romans 1:21–25 “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

We often think of this as a warning for those who are lost and it is. But it is also a warning for us. God will not tolerate disobedience, ESPECIALLY IN HIS PEOPLE. God judged the people’s request for a king by giving them exactly what they wanted and it wasn’t good for them. Israel’s punishment for their request was Saul. They endured his maddened pursuit of David until finally Saul was killed in battle.

Saul’s judgment for disobedience was a tormenting spirit that drove him to fear David, who loved and honor Saul far more than he deserved.

We need to understand that disobedience to God is a very serious offense.

Galatians 6:7–8 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

We need to take God’s Word seriously. When He tells us something is sinful and it must not be a part of our lives, we need to devote all of it to destruction. Not that we will be perfect, but our overall striving should be the passionate destruction of sin in our lives.

Can a Christian be demon possessed?

The short answer is no. The long answer is that a demon would not be able to possess and control a person who is saved because God the Holy Spirit lives within them. It is logically inconsistent and goes against everything we know about the nature of God.

The disclaimer to this is that we can be demon oppressed. And while I don’t want to scare you, I do want you to understand that demons come in the form of people, mental assaults, taking advantage of circumstances, all in order to discourage and hinder your walk with Christ.

On the other hand, that we see with Saul, sometimes the demonic oppression in our life is discipline to drive us back to God. “This is your life without Me. Remember and come back.”